The dismissal of Sonny Liston from boxing history.

Floyd Patterson was a great champion who was not afraid of Liston, in fact I read on Ring Magazine I think or Ring The 20th century book, that Floyd was eager to fight Sonny but Cus D Amato cutoff communications between them or something. Sonny respected Floyd later on in life for this.

Floyd had a lengthier time as champion, he conquered the title twice, beating a man who was only defeated by Floyd in Ingemar Johansson. Floyd did beat an old Archie Moore for the title and had a few wins over boxers who should not have been there with him. But he also beat Roy Harris who was a good boxer and Tommy Jackson who was a good boxer too. Later he went 12 with Muhammad Ali who was at his peak, fought Bonavena (i think he won right?) and got robbed of a third reign, be it how circumstancial of a world champion Jimmy Ellis was, against Jimmy Ellis. Jimmy Ellis was boring but he was a great fighter and courageous like almost no one else. i respect Jimmy Ellis.

All that said, Sonny Liston's reputation has been damaged by his known links to the mafia. All of his fights with the exception of the Patterson ones and some of his latter ones come under suspicion. i did the Wikipedia article about Irving Resnick and there is a lot of information there also that casts a mystery to Liston's death, right here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Resnick

When George Foreman gave Liston praise,i believe him. Who am i after all to doubt him? Besides i did not spar with him .

But I dont think any version of Liston beats a prime Ali. I dont think any Heavyweight beats a prime version of Ali with the exception maybe of some of those humongous ones against whom any regular sized heavyweight would have trouble. Be it as it is, i rank Muhammad as the greatest of all time. Even greater than Sugar Ray Robinson. Not the best, but there is a distinction there: Not only did Muhammad beat all the best Heavyweights of his day until he was well into his 30s, but he did it with grace and he was great for the sport overall, giving boxing a shot on the arm that no one had given it or did after. Robinson was better but even in that list, Ali is number 2. And if the two had faced on equal weights, Ali was so fast at Heavyweight, i cant imagine what he'd been at Welterweight, he'd been a machine gun and I dont think Sugar ray puts many gloves on that face.

For that reason I dont think Sonny Liston beats Ali either. But of course, Ive been proven wrong before so I could be here too.

 

Bull****. I did extensive research into Gallender's claims. Will share my findings later.

 

Sonny hasn’t been erased from history.

Sonny’s accomplishments are all there. But he tainted them by his own conduct outside the ring and especially how he lost the Ali fights. Didn’t exactly stand up when things went south … typically front-running bully behavior .. when the going got tough, Sonny got going (on his way out of the ring).

Liston’s legacy has good and bad marks, but he has one.

 

Tyson Fury was near dead but comes back to fight even w Usyk but you "excuse " and "justify" Liston giving up his title on his stool because of a shoulder injury. Troll.

 

Appreciate it mate. I’m unfortunately busy with work at the moment, so it’ll likely have to wait till tomorrow but rest assured I’ll respond to this post so you’ll get a notification.

 

Pretty apparent Sonny was able to get in the ring and throw punches. He just couldn’t catch Ali or deal with his speed.

Whether he asked for a postponement or not, it wasn’t like his arm was dangling lifelessly by his side. He wasn’t debilitated in a way that should make someone quit. Great fighters (hell, even ordinary ones) have overcome injuries to win … but this isn’t about winning — it’s about giving up the No. 1 most important title in all of sport when he could have kept going. He threw both hands in the previous round … if his left was a problem, he could have given it another round and bombed away with abandon with the right.

He also had a rematch with no excuses and he didn’t exactly show great gusto or heart there either. Basically admitted he could have gotten up but didn’t because he was afraid of Ali … that pretty much says it all.

 

Despite his exceptional talent and accomplishments Liaston has been somewhat disregarded again because he quit and then took a dive. Period. Why he took the dive no one, especially the troll knows. All we know his that a man who took bombs from major punchers took one of the most pathetic dives in film history and that was that.

 

Liston had a past but he was also a convenient fall guy.

Even when he had a good stretch of good behaviour, his past was dredged up.

And it was often dredged up to a significant degree by none other than D’Amato - who was obviously running with an ulterior motive - that being his ongoing protection of Floyd during his title reign.

The cops also followed Liston around, looking for and jumping on the smallest of slip ups.

How about this? Liston quit due to a verified and comprising injury in the first fight. He suffered a flash KD in the rematch - and he hit the deck, Ali clearly breached the rules by not retreating to a neutral corner.

Ali later did the same thing against Bonavena, wouldn’t go to a neutral corner, even going so far as to slap down the ref’s restraining arm in order to get back at Ringo ASAP. A clear breach of the rules

Ali ****ed up the event in Maine more than anyone else - and then the actions of Fleischer and Walcott added to the chaos - Liston didn’t even get a count - I guess we blame Liston for that too?

To superficially say that Liston took a cut and dried dive in Lewiston really isn’t taking on board all the obvious events/facts of that fight.

I think it’s just justified to favour Ali in a prime vs prime scenario but it wold be a much tougher fight for Ali, imo.

1960 Liston was a much tougher prospect. Younger, lighter, better conditioned , faster and duly focused.

Against the 218 lb, inactive, over confident and insufficiently conditioned 1964 Liston (who was fully expecting an easy 4-5 round blowout against Ali) some prior Liston victims might’ve found themselves doing that bit better.

Even the 1960 version of Machen would’ve been that much more competitive against 1964 Liston than he actually was against Sonny in 1960 - particularly when the rounds began to build up.

A mental experiment yes, but “proof” at least to me that Miami Liston was well removed from the version of himself from just 4 years prior.

 

A boxer risks his body (and his life) every time he steps foot into the ring. That’s accepted by every fighter.

I don’t need to watch movies. I’ve watched actual fights where brave combatants won with injuries or lost honorably with them.

If Sonny wasn’t willing to fight through adversity to try to defend his title, he wasn’t a worthy champion. If he took a dive in the second fight with Ali, well that tells us about his character … and people believing that he did so is why his reputation took such a hit and why he was blackballed and persona non grata afterward.

And it’s not cheating to stand over someone yelling at them after knocking them down. Ali didn’t strike him when he was down or kick him, lol. The ref should have interrupted the count and ushered him to a neutral corner, but him not immediately going there isn’t cheating. And if Sonny was hit while getting up, Ali almost certainly gets DQ’d and Sonny wins the title back.

 

Klitschko did the same with Byrd but later he fought Lewis until he lost an eye, Duran - no mas with Leonard, Holyfield stayed on the stool in the fight with S. Williams, Hopkins did not try to be a hero with Chad Dawson and in several other fights. In fact, this list is much longer. I know many lesser-known boxers who sometimes showed great heart to fight, but were also able to give up at some point. Sometimes all it took was a moment. Sonny has shown too much heart to fight too many times to take away his legacy for just these two times when he was a burnt-out, injured boxer.